One of the big disadvantages that the Internet/Telecom revolution brought to a customer is on dealing with companies when he has a difficulty with them. If you have a complaint on the product bought or service received, you are asked to call up a toll free number. The Tom and Jerry exercise starts thereafter. You will talk to a Toni or Moni or Soni (obviously, that is not their original names) and you have to give all the details (of purchase, serial numbers, warranty details, your details etc. etc….) before you get some response to the problems that you face. If it is resolved by this guy, you are indeed lucky. If not, God save you! You will be told that they would get back to you. Most of the Indian companies do not keep the promise. The escalated calls go and fall in the Arabian Sea! You call again, you hit the same Toni, Moni & Soni and you are nowhere. You ask them to connect you to their reporting officers but they are trained well to dodge the request. You ask for details of company’s higher ups and then you would realize that these Toni/Moni/soni is addressing your calls from an outsourced call center and do not have any connect with the company from where you bought and do not know anyone in the company. You hit a wall!
Recently I had an experience with the Internet broadband that I was using at home, provided by the largest business enterprise in the country, famous for ethical standards and customer focus. The service was disrupted totally and we had made 8 calls in 10 days to the same Toni/Moni/Soni, but of no use. They were parroting the same lines all over again. Even droppinging the name of the big man of the enterprise did not help. Several times in the midst, I called the regional office of the company to register the complaint and I always got directed to the Toni/Moni/Soni’s number. I went to the company's website to lodge the complaint and got a default reply stating that my complaint is registered and it would revert to us soon (never did that happen). Eventually I get the broadband connect back, after 15 days of the disruption of the service. In spite of being the ethical company with customer focus tag, this company did not take the escalation. You just are just a number and whom they have got to address you is the pappus, the Toni/Moni/Soni’s.
A professor friend recently narrated the story of a computer problem that he faced. The computer was sold by the company that claims to be closest to the customer. Two days after registering the complaint through the Toni/Moni/Soni route, an engineer landed up. He resolved the problem but by then there were two more subsequent problems which the engineer refused to attend stating that he was sent only for addressing the cited problem and nothing else. So the professor again went through the Toni/Moni/Soni route to have the next of the issues resolved. In all, it took only 10 days to resolve a set of minor problems which otherwise could have been resolved in one day through a normal direct route!
At our office, the commercial broadband connectivity went down seven days back. Compliant was registered with Toni/Moni/Soni of the company and nothing happened. This company is run by one of warring sons of the greatest of the entrepreneurs the country had produced. Since we had some business connections with this company, we talked directly to some of the senior officers there. Not only that nothing happened, one of them even justified by telling that it is possible for the DNS Servers to go down once a month!
The wonder of wonder is the notice issued by the same company in yesterday’s newspaper. If a big notice like this has to come out in the paper, one has to assume that it must be undergoing many challenges in this front. The notice looked very funny to me. It says once you register a complaint, if within seven days it is not resolved, you could call up a Nodal officer (whose details are given) and if within 10 days complaining to the Nodal officer nothing happens, you could go to the Appellate Authority with a written complaint.
What does this mean?
In this Internet age, in this nano-second based century, this company will still take so much of time to resolve matters. Therefore, if your line or website or broadband or billing or any service is down for seventeen days or more, you are advised d to suffer without getting any assistance from the company. Great!
God save us all from these fortified companies having faceless people!
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3 comments:
Most ethical company put me out of business for using their call centre product. We used 28,000 minutes and they billed us for 280,000 minutes and invoked a Bank Guarantee. This spoiled our relationship with the Bank. They only promise 98% uptime. So the 2% time could be a time, when my business dissapoints its customers. No point in writing to its MD or Chairman.
The ethical company dis not really need the money from a SSI like us. The ethical group took our this Govt pashu for its cash reserves.
Now it will take me 20 years to get this matter resolved through the judicial process!! The hand of sleight of a jealous Rotarian is not ruled out in this matter. Called it spite if you like.
Yes, SR, I wonder whether God will ever save us.
The situation in our country is thus. We may have to wait for the next revolution
Sivankutty
India is going through a face of rapid success. Middle and lower classes are getting uplifted to the next level in society. Now this comes with a set of challenges. The CEO/Founders of these companies may have a vision and values. But do the frontline staff want to standup and jeopardise their success in a 'me too success world' ? No.
The regulatory environment and the legal system needs to be sharp and quick, so these folks are scared to be unethical/immoral.
98% of the Indian corporate world are faceless employees who are better off pimping. They have no thoughts or value of their own other than to buy their apartments, cars and to keep up with their middle class neighbours.
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